SpaceX (LSE: SPCX) shares rebounded 15.8% to $133 on Friday 7 August, pushing the SpaceX share price forecast back into focus after one of the most volatile weeks in the stock’s short public life.
The recovery followed a bruising sell-off. A lock-up expiry covering 911.5 million shares on 6 August 2026 added to selling pressure, according to Business Insider, compounding nerves already frayed by second-quarter results published on 5 August.
Capital Spending Runs Far Ahead of Expectations
Total group revenue for the three months ended 30 June 2026 reached $7,814 million, according to SpaceX’s Q2 2026 SEC earnings filing. That headline was quickly overshadowed by the spending figure.
Total capital expenditure came in at $18.37 billion, exceeding the FactSet analyst consensus of $13.22 billion by roughly 39%, per CNBC. Of that sum, $15.8 billion, or around 86%, went on AI infrastructure. For context, AI-related capex stood at $749 million as recently as Q2 2025, according to Business Insider.
The AI segment generated revenue of $2,561 million in the quarter, up roughly threefold year on year, but still recorded a loss from operations of $1,257 million. The Connectivity segment, which houses Starlink, contributed $4,291 million in revenue and $1,656 million in operating income, making it the only part of the business currently producing a profit.
Overall, SpaceX posted a quarterly net loss of $541 million, down from $1 billion in Q1 2026.
Starlink Growth Slows on ARPU, but Subscriber Numbers Climb
Starlink ended the quarter with 12.0 million subscribers across 167 countries, up from 10.3 million at the end of Q1 2026, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Average revenue per user, however, fell to $66 per month in Q2 2026 from $85 per month in Q2 2025, per the SEC filing. Subscriber growth is outpacing per-user monetisation as SpaceX expands into lower-priced markets.
New airline partnerships activated during the quarter included Southwest, Virgin Atlantic, Iberia, and Aer Lingus, with a major agreement signed with American Airlines, according to the SpaceX Q2 2026 earnings release. The company also disclosed it had been awarded more than $6 billion in multi-year US government contracts for its Starshield programme during the quarter.
On the AI side, SpaceX entered into Cloud Services Agreements totalling $14.1 billion in contracted sales during Q2, providing customers access to its compute capacity. Nameplate compute capacity reached 1.4 GW at the end of Q2 2026, up from 1.0 GW at the end of Q1 2026 and 0.4 GW at the same point a year earlier.
Chief executive Elon Musk told shareholders on the earnings call that SpaceX expects to end 2026 with more than 2 gigawatts of compute capacity, and sees that figure growing to closer to 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027. He also said the company would likely hit $1 trillion in revenue by 2030, a year earlier than a forecast he had given six weeks prior, per the BBC. Musk described Nvidia’s Vera Rubin chip as ‘the best AI computer’ and said AI data centres would be built exclusively using Nvidia hardware.
Chief financial officer Bret Johnsen said capital spending would continue at a ‘very similar’ level for the remainder of the year, according to the BBC.
SpaceX Share Price Forecast: What Analysts Expect
Thirty-three analysts covering SpaceX produce a one-year price target range of $75 to $800. The consensus target for August 2027 stands at $225, roughly 70% above Friday’s close of $133.
Of the 40 analysts providing ratings over the past three months: 27 rate the stock Strong Buy, 3 Buy, 7 Hold, 1 Sell, and 2 Strong Sell. The spread is unusually wide, reflecting deep uncertainty over AI profitability, the pace of Starlink monetisation, and Musk’s role across multiple ventures.
SpaceX listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) via a UK retail offer launched on 4 June 2026. The shares have demonstrated the kind of volatility typical of early-stage public listings with contested growth narratives.
The near-term test is whether capital expenditure running at roughly $18 billion per quarter can be sustained without the AI segment’s losses overwhelming Starlink’s operating profit. The first full year of lock-up expirations and the trajectory of Starlink’s ARPU will be two numbers worth watching closely as the Q3 2026 reporting date approaches.
